A billion here, a billion there …

Pretty soon, it’s real money. The new subway station profiled above replaces the one damaged on a Tuesday morning in September a few years back.

This new station replaces a temporary station that was opened in 2003 and uses the same track layout. The 2003 temporary station used the same track layout as the original PATH station built in 1971. (PATH is the Port Authority Trans Hudson subway system operated by the Port Authority of NY and NJ that runs from Newark and other points in New Jersey through two different sets of tubes to several points in Lower Manhattan. It’s not part of the NYC Transit Authority.)

The 1971 station replaced the original Hudson Terminal of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad who opened it in 1909. The H&M was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad who built the line to allow passengers headed to Manhattan to connect from several main line train stations in New Jersey. The terminal was purchased in the early 1960s by the Port Authority to be used as the site for a World Trade Center. They bought the railroad, too.

The original Hudson Terminal had more platforms than the current station.

Cost of the stations?

1909 – $8,000,000 (at least $189M adjusted for inflation, but this number also included a huge, for the time, office complex)

1971 – $35,000,000 ($202M adjusted)

2003 – $253,000,000 ($321M, adjusted)

2014 – $3,400,000,000

Yet Another Reason why you can can’t compare anything else in the US to the New York area.